SKF NOTE: This third of four parts of my Feb. 28, 1983 interview with Jimmy Webb picks up the story of Ringo Starr’s frustration with the producer of Webb’s “Land’s End” album spending days trying to get a drum sound.
“Angel Heart,” Webb’s current album at the time of this interview, was recorded in three to four days, and he talks about that. The backup band for “Angel Heart” is Toto.
And our conversation covers lots of ground about the changing record industry.
“It seems we are at the end of an era. A lot of great careers are seemingly past their prime and leveling out. I feel a hush before another great boon of some kind,” Webb said.
Finally, Webb shares what he said is “the epitome of my philosophy of what it actually takes to be a songwriter and a composer.”
SKF NOTE: This Pt 2 segment of Jimmy Webb’s Feb. 28, 1983 interview picks up where Pt 1 left off. I just flipped the audio cassette and began taping again.
Here Jimmy Webb talks more about his songwriting; about how he writes songs.
Also, the conversation reminds us of how digital music and the internet are such game changers. Webb talks here, in 1983, about the frustrations of a songwriter with a record label unwilling to do much to promote his newest album.
This interview was originally for a short piece in Mix magazine. This is the first time the full audio interview has been made public.
SKF NOTE: This Feb. 28, 1983 interview with Jimmy Webb was for a short piece in Mix magazine. Unfortunately, the magazine editors, in my opinion, rewrote and botched the manuscript I sent them.
Although I’ve posted on my blog a few excerpts from this interview, this is the first time the full audio interview is available to the public. This is interview Part 1 of 4, conducted at the Webb home in Tuxedo Park, NY.
In this segment, Webb talks about quitting college to become a songwriter. He insists he had no musical gift as a child.
After dropping out of school he started knocking on record company doors, including Motown, where one of his songs made it onto The Supremes’s Christmas album.
You’ll hear about Webb’s initial meeting with legendary drummer Hal Blaine who went on to record on some of Webb’s hit records.
Webb tells the origin of the “Morse Code” intro to Glen Campbell’s recording of “Wichita Lineman.“
Met Hal Blaine on an early recording session. Blaine encouraged Webb to “stick with it.”
Webb talks about help he received from Marty Paich and other recording studio pros.
“I should have worked harder,” Webb said of his early years. “One of the biggest mistakes I made is assuming I had the magic formula, and anytime I wrote a song it was going to be a hit.”
Part 1 ends with Webb talking about his latest album at the time, “Angel Heart,” which, he says, “Is the best album I’ve ever made.”
But in 1983 he was still figuring out how to successfully move from being a writer of entertaining songs to being a writer of socially responsible music.
SKF NOTE: My high school friend and guitarist, Jimmy Weisbin, was listening to Charles Mingus’s classic “Mingus Ah Um” album on the Ralph Family stereo. Neil Ralph was another high school musician friend. His parents’ home in Centerport, NY was a welcoming gathering place for us aspiring musician. Plus it had the advantage of a great sounding stereo system.
During a “Mingus Ah Um” rapid fire drum solo, Weisbin declared, “That guy is the best drummer I’ve ever heard in my life!”
Inwardly I protested. It was a time in my musical education when I measured all drummers against Buddy Rich. Of course, my sophisticated ears picked up on points of technical sloppiness during Richmond’s solo Rich would never have made.
But not long after that listening session, I was at the 1971 Newport Jazz Festival where Mingus’s current band was making me understand, for the first time, the language of jazz. It seem to happen as quickly as flipping on a light switch. One second jazz was a mish-mash of confusing sounds. A second later is spoke to me as clear as Irish crystal.
Dannie Richmond was not Mingus’s drummer at the 1971 Festival. That honor belongs to Buffalo, NY drummer Virgil Day. And it was a riff played by pianist John Foster that actually turned on my jazz light.
But ever since the ’71 Festival I’ve felt a closeness to Mingus’s music. And I haven’t worked out the percentages, but in my lifetime all of Mingus’s best albums included Richmond.
While at Modern Drummer I phoned Richmond, offering him a MD feature interview. The details are sketchy. Richmond was playing in NYC the night I called. He invited me to come hear the band, and we agreed on a separate NYC time and place to meet for an interview.
Maybe I was broke, or tired. Maybe my car registration had expired. For some reason I did not make it to NYC to hear Richmond that night. In my weak defense I hadn’t promised to show up at Richmond’s gig. But neither did I give him an unequivocal no.
I had seen Richmond in concert with Mingus a couple of times. I saw him at The Maine Point club in Philadelphia when he was with the rock band Mark-Almond. And, by that time, I had listened to countless hours of Richmond on every Mingus album I could get my hands on.
In my mind there was no urgency to see Richmond play that night. It’s not as if I was unfamiliar with his drumming.
But when I did arrive in NYC at our appointed interview time, Dannie Richmond was the no-show.
We reconnected later by phone. Richmond confirmed his no-show was payback for my no-show. And our interview never happened.
What’s my lesson from that snafu? Honesty is the best policy. When Richmond invited me to NYC to hear his band, if I couldn’t make it – even if it was I didn’t have the money for tolls and parking – I should have put aside my ego and said so.
Instead, my good intentions for a Richmond interview collapsed and soured what might have been a good friendship.
SKF NOTE: Drummer/bandleader/composer Paul Motian was one of my first feature interviews for Modern Drummer. His interview appeared in the April-May 1980 MD. I loved his songwriting and I liked his playing jazz drums without the traditional ding-ding-ding cymbal beat.
Last year I found out from friends visiting Rockland, ME that a woman living there had a local radio show dedicated to Motian. And she had all of the late drummer’s belongings in a Rockland warehouse.
That piqued my curiosity. Who was this woman? And how did she end up curating one of the world’s most renowned drummers artifacts?
I reached out to Cindy McGuirl by email, which we followed up with phone calls. This conversation took place during two sessions (February and March) in 2024. Paul Motian was McGuirl’s uncle. And as he neared the end of his life, Motian asked his niece to take possession of his life’s work and belongings.
That’s exactly what McGuirl did. After Motian’s death, McGuirl drove a moving truck into NYC and drove all of the drummer’s possessions back to Rockland, ME.
McGuirl appears in the 2020 documentary, “Motian In Motion.” She also hosted the “Uncle Paul’s Jazz Closet” blog and radio show. Her dedication to Motian’s legacy is admirable.
McGuirl has compiled for sale two volumes of Motian Songbooks. He has an extensive song catalog, and McGuirl, an artist and bookbinder by trade, has made these songbooks works of art.
Cindy McGuirl and Paul Motian
Covid-19 curtailed her on-air Motian radio shows. So while she is not now producing new “Uncle Paul’s Jazz Closet” podcasts, McGuirl is digitizing the more than 200 archived shows, making them available to the public through her website.
Finally, the “autobiography” referenced several times in this conversation is a work in progress, chock full of interesting observations by Motian throughout his career.
The Derek Baily/Paul Motian “Duo in Concert” album is available here.
Thank you, Cindy McGuirl, for preserving your Uncle Paul’s legacy. He left his life’s work in the right hands.
Scott K Fish 
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